20 THE UTAH MAGAZINE. indebted to the deceased parent; I immediately transferred to them the sum of one thousand pounds, and fancied that I had managed most adroitly to secure them, at least, from want. But what was my surprise, when I learnt that the noble girl, immediately upon receiving the money, had handed it over to her father's creditors, believing it to be their just due. This awakened a new and more elevated interest in my heart; and, in company with my old lady-friend, I visited her humble abode. I shall never forget the picture of that small room, so poor and yet so cleanly; the bed where lay the sightless mother, and the little table covered with the rich silks, which were to minister to the wants of the poor by pampering the pride of the rich. I saw the pale workwoman-I watched the hectic flush on her thin cheek! Will you forgive me, Julia, if I add that, as I compared the patient sufferer with the brilliant belle, I accused you of the selfishness and cruelty which had reduced her to the brink of the grave? You were only one of the many who had thus tasked her strength, but you should have known better." "I see it all, Charles; but you should have remembered that we sometimes sin through ignorance rather than willfulness. Go on." "I found refinement, good sense, delicacy of perception, and high-mindedness beneath the garb of poverty. By the aid of the old lady, Clara Wilmot was placed in a situation which secured her from such hard tasks; and, as the governess of my friend's grandchildren, she assumed a position better suited to her talents and virtues. I assure you, cousin, she understands the 'fitness of things' no less in intellectual than in personal graces." "And so you are going to marry her. Who could have supposed that, after all your fastidious notions about women, you would find perfection in the character of a poor workgirl?" "I have not found perfection, Julia; but I have learned to be satisfied with less. Clara has none of the brilliant beauty which once captivated my fancy; but her soft, sweet eyes are full of womanly tenderness, and her brow wears the serenity of high thoughts. She understands the waywardness of my susceptible nature; she knows how to modulate the harmony. as well as to soften down the discords which such a peculiar temperament as mine awakens. She does not in the least resemble my beau-ideal of a wife; but she is something better, for she is a tender, truthful, devoted woman." You have my best wishes for your happiness," said Julia, while a gush of irrepressible tears burst from her eyes. Since to you good has come out of evil; and my faults have led to your happiness, think of me, Charles, with kindness as one who carries beneath the trappings of wealth a lonely but not an unsympathizing heart." What can she mean?" thought Charles, as he left the room; "can it be that she once loved me?" "Good heavens!" exclaimed Julia, as in bitterness of spirit she entered her own chamber, where the morrow's array of bridal splendor met her view; "how little do we know of the undercurrent of life, which, while we seem gayly floating in one direction, slowly bears onward to an opposite course! Who could have believed that a careless word, an act of mere thoughtlessness, could have deprived me of life-long happiness?" LOST IN THE WOODS. About ninety years ago the events of this story commenced. It was in Vermont, within the limits of the township of Rockingham or Springfield, it is impossible to say which, that the log cabin, which was the home of the heroine, stood surrounded by a forest. MAY 15, "I have finished my spinning, Robert, and I shall carry the yarn home. I think I shall spend the day with Mrs. Green, and I wish you would come and meet me and bring the baby home," said the young wife, taking the linen in her apron and the baby in her arms. "Very well," replied the husband, giving his crowing child a kiss, as he started off, with his hoe on his shoulder, to the wheat field. His land had been burned over and sown with wheat; but the huge stumps of the old trees and the thick underground roots prevented the use of the plow. All day he worked busily in the fresh soil, eating his lunch at noon from the little basket, until the lengthened shadows of the forest around his clearing betokened sunset. Then he started off to meet his wife. A mile or two in the forest his neighbor Green had made his clearing. He went on without meeting his wife and baby, until he got to his neighbor's door. Why," said Mrs. Green, in answer to his inquiries, "did'nt you meet her? She hasn't been gone long-only a few minutes." "Can she possibly have missed the marked trees?" asked Robert Harris, aghast. The two men went together through the forest, which every moment grew darker and drearier. They called Mrs. Harris's name aloud at intervals, but there came no answer. They kept saying to each other, "We may find her at home;" but they were heavy at heart. The log house was reached; but the mother and babe were not there. The cow lowed to be milked, and the pigs who ran in the woods all day and came home at night, clamored for their usual feeding; but the men took no notice of them. Back again through the woods, with a lantern, calling and hallooing. Then they went to the next clearing and the next. "A woman lost!" What telegram in the exciting days of battle ever fell more thrillingly on human ears than those words, going from mouth to mouth among the homesteads of the new country? With iron muscles and determined wills the warm-hearted settlers set out. "We will scour the woods; we will find her, never fear!" According to a custom they had at such times, they blew horns, made fires, and shouted till they were hoarse. No tidings of the lost ones on that night. All the next day they searched, and day after day as long as possible. Fires were left smouldering among the trees; men who knew the woods kept resolutely to the search; but the budding April had its own secrets. When Mrs. Harris started, with her babe in her arms, from Mrs. Green's, expecting momentarily to meet her husband, she went on carelessly, her attention being directed in part to the child, when suddenly looking up, she discovered no white scar of an ax on any tree in sight. But she thought she had only stepped out of the track and might in a moment regain it. A vain fancy. She went on, but nothing familiar met her eyes. The night came on. The song birds went to rest, and the owls commenced their doleful hooting. She was alone with her infant in a great sea of forest, where never woodman's ax had echoed. She was lost. She sat down faint and tired, and, womanlike, began to cry. Hark! That was a human shout! She arose and turned her course breathlessly towards it. And now, she thought, she heard it again, farther off. Many hours of the night were spent in running with hysterical sobs and palpitating heart towards the voices of her friends, so near that she could hear them, but so far away that no effect of her frenzied strength could enable her to reach their protecting presence. Towards morning she slept, leaning against a tree, with the baby on her bosom. She started nervously in her dreams, and at first bird-song awoke to full consciousness. She would not willingly give up and die. Her friends would find them. She saw near her some of last year's berries, and tough leaves of wintergreen, and a few acorns. A poor breakfast, but she ate whatever she could find, for the sake of her child more than her own. This day also she ran wildly through the tangle of dead brakes and briars, growing from the decay of centuries over the gullies and jagged rocks, past rude branches that caught and rent her dress till she came to the dying embers of a fire. Here she lingered long. Her friends had been here; perhaps Robert had kindled this fire with his own hands, and for her. Hark again! the search has commenced this morning. Echoing through the woods comes the prolonged shriek of the horn. She called with all the desperation of one drowning-she rushes forward-but the ground is rough, and, alas! how heavy the baby grows. She is giddy from the loss of sleep and want of food. The baby moans and will not be comforted. In this way she spends the day and another dreadful night. She finds another fire; she stays by it and keeps it burning through the night, for she is afraid of wolves. Another morning, and she is almost hopeless. Oh, will not heaven pity her? The little one grows weaker; he cannot now hold up his head. 21 Was she alone on the earth, and was the earth one vast wilderness without outlet, without a clearing or a settlement? Tramping, tramping, with her feet bleeding and cracked at first; and afterwards completely hardened; nearly naked; knowing nothing of time or place, she was fast becoming idiotic. When she was hungry, she sought for food, but the great idea lingered in her mind was that of pressing on. Since the luxuriance of summer had filled the forest with ferns and new growth of briar and underbrush, there was more trouble in passing through. But she had become quite accustomed to the rough work; and the frenzy at last became a steady, constant habit, almost the labor of life to her. One day in October, the inhabitants of the village of Charleston, in New Hampshire, were startled into the wildest excitement by seeing a nearly naked emaciated woman, with her hair streaming upon her shoulders, walked with beAnother terrible night! baby moans piteously; he falls in-wildered gaze along their streets. She told them she was to convulsions; the next day he dies. All day she carries the lifeless body in her arms, and all night beneath the unpitying stars she holds it to her bosom. She carried the little burden day after day, till the purple hue of decay was settling rapidly over it; and she felt, with a pang at her heart, that she must bury it. Then she looked about for a spot where she might dig the tiny grave so deep that the wild cat and wolf would not scent it out. Weak as she was, this was no easy task; but in her wandering she came upon a giant tree torn up by a hurricane. In the soft earth where the roots had lain, she scooped out the baby's resting place; and, making it soft with moss, she covered the cold little form for ever from her sight. Then she sat down by the grave in a stupor of grief. Hour after hour passed. How to commence the dreadful pilgrimage? Then she noted everything about the spot. There was a rock, there stood an immense hemlock. Yes, she would know the place. She could find it easily with Robert. Her Then began again the struggles through the wilderness. Day after day, week after week, she passed on. shoes were torn to fragments, and fell from her feet. Her garments were torn to tatters. But the days grew warmer, and the fever that was burning in her veins made the soft showers that fell upon her welcome. First she ate the buds of trees and the bark of the birch. Presently she began to find the young checkerberry leaves; and now and then she found a partridge's nest, and greedily sucked the eggs. After a time there were red raspberries and black thimbleberries in the woods; and then she knew it was July. It The trees had now put on afresh their beautiful garments. she saw nothing but trees in intermediate succession. seemed years—yes, ages ago that she swept the hearth with a birch broom, and sung the baby to sleep in Robert's cabin. Her mind grew bewildered; still she went on, on, on. When she came to a large stream, she went up towards its source until she could wade across it. So she said; and she affirmed that she never crossed a stream wider than a brook. She paid no attention to sun or moon as a guide, or indication of the points of the compass; but she must have taken a northwesterly direction, there was Black River, Mill River, Wa lost. "Robert Harris's wife, who disappeared from the opposite side of the river in April!" exclaimed the villagers. "How had she crossed the Connecticut? Where had she been all the time?" But she told them she had never crossed the Connecticut, and that she had been lost in the woods all this time. There was no lack of hospitality: the wanderer was immediately clad, fed, and cared for to the utmost. Volunteers went at once and brought her husband; for the story of his bereavement was well known on the Charleston side of the river. We can only imagine the meeting, and the tears that were shed at the thought of the little forsaken grave by the up-rooted tree. The joy-bells were rung in the village; and the poor woman, a living skeleton, was nursed and pettedevery woman vieing with her neighbor to lavish every good thing upon her-until her weakened mind recovered its tone again. As she constantly asserted that she had never crossed the river, it is supposed she wandered into Canada, and going round the Connecticut at its source, or crossing where it was a brooklet, passed down on the New Hampshire side until she reached a district just opposite that from which she started. When she began to grow strong again, her mind recurred constantly to the grave in the wilderness. She described to her husband its surroundings; and he went and searched for it, but without success. As soon as she was able, she went out with her husband and other friends, to search; but the baby's grave was never found. It was thought very strange that she, in all her wanderings, never met a roving Indian; but so it was. The Indian tribes had perhaps nearly disappeared from New England since the French and Indian war; but however that may be, the first human being she saw, after the burial of her infant, was in Charleston. This singular legend has descended to the writer from a descendant of hers who was the third child born in the town of Rockingham, Vermont, and the story is an undoubted fact. # THE UTAH MAGAZINE. Intellectual, Social, Political and Theological. SATURDAY, MAY 15, 1869. OUR WOMEN'S PLATFORM. CHAPTER II. WOMEN AND POLITICS. As far as our individual opinion respecting the actual participation of women in scenes of political strife is concerned, we believe that practically they can never be brought to delight in it. In the essential quality of their mental and physical organization, women are non-combatants and non-assertive; while man is combative and glories in the excitement of political contest. Women prefer to attain their ends another way. They have tools of a sharper edge but not of so massive a form. The greatest opponents to the exercise of political duties by women will always be women themselves. Individual women would, doubtless, glory in it, but you could not force it upon the mass of the They would sooner be wronged and keep so than fight in the political arena for their rights; and on this very account they have been politically wronged for ages and have kept so; while they have convulsed courts-and by connection kingdoms-over a silk dress or a love-token. The only reason why women have not been politicians in the past is because they have not wanted to be such; for there is no instinct of their true nature but they have made men feel and succumb to long ago. Had women possessed half as much of an instinct for politics as they have for love, and been deprived of it for six thousand years, they would have shattered the constitution of society and introduced chaos a thousand times over. sex. MAY 15, spirit, and an outgrowth of the unsubduable deity embosomed in every soul. As to the true sphere of women, speaking in the abstract, we are all agreed that it is spirituality, beauty, refinement, tenderness, love and hope. Once elevated to their true position-that of priestesses of heaven-born influences and graces, and they will never-speaking of the mass -stoop to the labored efforts of lumbering legislation. They will see a diviner and a speedier road to their object. They will discover that they need not our clumsy weapons. They can do more with a fencing foil than a broadsword any day. But this question is not one of seemliness or adaptation, it is one of the right of human beings of either sex to choose their own guides, spiritual and temporal, and determine their own conditions. Whusic. CONGREGATIONAL SINGING. Abstractly speaking we are in favor of congregational singing. How delightful it would be to hear at the General Conferences of the Saints ten thousand voices of the congregation join in the praises of God in some soul-stirring hymn of Zion. Of course for such a jubilee of congregational praise it would presuppose some musical education among the entire people, but especially a general familiarity with our own hymns and anthems selected for Tabernacle service. But it is not at all too much to hope that the time will come when musical culture will form a branch of school education among our children, and then congregational singing will be quite practicable. There is, moreover, another phase of this subject of congregational singing led by a trained choir, rather than exclusive choir singing amid the silence and general apathy of the assembly. Let Zion have her own musical service, her own set hymns, anthems and psalms, and all the people would soon become familiar with the same and a thousand voices every Sabbath could join in the praises and glory of God, led by the regular choir. It would then require but little or no scientific musical training to reach this simple form of congregational singing, and it would only be on the occasion of the choir performing some grander chorus or anthem that the general assembly would be required to be silent, and then their silence would be simply from the reason that they could not join in the performance; and hence the choir would always have the honor of leading and the mission of educating the congregation in their musical services. It would, moreover, be found that even in these extra performances the assembly, after a few repetitions, would take a part, and their hearts would sing when their voices were silent. This congregational singing is no new-fangled problem. Formerly the Saints were more given to the use of their own hymns, adapted to their own familiar tunes. Though they were neither expressly set to music by our own composers, nor sometimes very happily allied to the old clothing of popular songs, yet sung by the Saints with full hearts and vigorous voices, they were very inspiring. For our part, to this day we would sooner hear "The spirit of God like a fire is burning" sung by the congregation than an anthem badly sung by a choir. upon this subject hereafter. So far as equality of the sexes is concerned, we hold that surroundings being equal, the womanly brain is in no way inferior to man's in the extent and variety of its capabilities; but its activities and powers run altogether in another direction. There can, therefore, be no fear entertained of the mass of women, enfranchised or not, stooping to mingle in political affray. They have too keen a sense of their greater influence in another direction to throw themselves away on so unprofitable a business; but this in no way touches the question of their right to be recognized as of equal political value before the law. As far as our own community is concerned, in ecclesiastical matters-and with us they include politics and everything else-the perfect equality of women to vote for officers is practically allowed. Should God in his providence, for great and special ends, extend to women similar rights all over the Union, we are satisfied that the true instincts of the sex will be sufficient guarantee that women will never unduly leave their own sphere for that of man's. Water cannot run up hill, and women can no more resist their native propensity for more congenial pursuits than the Earth can resist the gravitating influence of old Father Sol and take a run off to Jupiter. The question stands pretty much like this: men, and women too, want a recognition of their right to do a thing whether they intend ever to do that thing or not. Men do not want to be, and never will make, good nurses; but they would indig- instance, has at times compared with the very best metropolitan orchestras, nantly oppose any law forbidding them to practice in that or any other delicate calling if they wanted to do so. Forbid to any human being any particular course and it immediately wants to peruse it. This is natural to the human More well ORCHESTRAL MUSIC.-In this branch of the art Utah has reached a higher excellence than in the vocal department. The orchestra of our theatre, for though at present its members are not so numerous as they once were. They are, however, very efficient, and often "discourse most cloquent music." Indeed, the band performance is sometimes the best of the evening's entertainment. Professor George Careless is the leader. He has held that position for four years, with credit to himself and satisfaction to the public. CAPTAIN CROXALL'S MARTIAL BAND.-The celebration of that triumph of the age-the completion of the Pacific Railroad-in Salt Lake City, May 10th, gave an opportunity for Captain Croxall's famous martial band to display the instrumental ability of its members. The band delivered some of the very best of the speeches at the mass meeting, and its performances spoke a genuine exultation that found an echo in the hearts of the thousands present. Captain Mark Croxall himself is a gem of the first water, and his martial band is a crown in which he has a lustrous setting. The Frama. PROSPECTIVE.—We understand that Miss Annie Lockhart will run a long engagement here. This, we think, will be very pleasing to the public. It is a happy circumstance to have a lady so satisfactory in all her parts as Miss Lockhart. She wins upon the public mind. This is rare, Artistes generally live out in their engagements the interest which they at first create. But this is not the case with the lady in question; we shall have the opportunity, therefore, of devoting a special page of review to her hereafter. NELL GWYNNE.-These old English comedies and plays require the very best of rendering. In the hands of indifferent performers the cast is lost. Nell Gwynne is one of those plays in question. On Wednesday evening last this beautiful piece was presented by the management, and the leading members of the company played admirably. Some of the minor characters, however, were out of time. Fanny Morgan Phelps well sustained the generous-hearted Nell, but the gem of the evening was Francis Stewart, personated by Miss Lockhart. It was a very chaste exposition of a maiden of honor, in the licentious court of Charles II of England. There is pathos and tenderness in this lady's performance. ALWAYS EFFICIENT.-Mr. John S. Lindsay has treated us to some very fine playing of late. His Michael Feeney, in Arrah-Na-Pogne, was a master-piece of its kind. But brother John ever plays well. There is vim in his action and force in his characters. He is constant in his efficiency, always ready in his scenes, never lacking in his parts. This is admirable. We would advise our minor actors to pattern after him in this, and ever aim to keep up the credit of the house by efficiency. A RISING MAN.-James M. Hardie is decidedly a rising actor. We expect to see him make a name in the world. There is in him metaphysical force and physical weight, combining a fine appearance. In heroic parts he can reach the "top of the tree." He must aim for professional perfection. That is a work of art. Nature has given him all the force. A chaste study of the sentimental and the intellectual will give the exquisite finish necessary to the artiste. JOHN C. GRAHAM.-This gentleman is still a public favorite. His line is varied. He is at home in the higher walks of comedy, is unique in low comedy, and plays with grace and dignity such characters as Charles II., in Nell Gwynne. THE LIFE OF THE STAGE.-Such is Mr. Margetts. He has held the public mind for a series of years, and no man to-day of our company can command so large a benefit as he. This is the people's critique, and a very satisfactory estimate, indeed. The stage is never dead when Mr. Margetts is in the scene. REMEMBERED.-Messrs. Thorne, Crowther and McIntosh deserve notice, for they are useful. Mr. Thorne, in particular, is in remembrance. Mr. Crowther sometimes plays well. The old Jew in the Child Stealer, for instance, was very good. THE LAST WEEK.-Fanny Morgan Phelps closed her engagement last week. On the whole it has been a success, and during her term a great variety of plays have been produced. We look forward with interest to Manager Caine's next card. A WELCOME TO THE PACIFC RAILROAD.-Manager Caine did honor to the great event of the age by a grand entertainment Monday evening. At the close of the play of the Octoroon, the audience was treated to a miniature representation of the laying of the last rail, after which the train dashed across the stage and the tableaux was illuminated with fireworks and hailed with joyous shonts. Review of Books, Etc. VICTOR HUGO'S LAST NOVEL.-The writings of this great master are not novelettes: they are works of art. His chapters are creations of the poet's soul-his novel, Victor Hugo's book of illustrations of humanity. We read his work as we contemplate cathedral architecture. It is a fabric of grand conceptions harmonized; combinations of immensities are brought within the focus of a limited view. In that view we have manifested the mood materialistic of Hugo's genius, which has induced a comparison between him and Michael Angelo. He hews out his conceptions in collosal forms, and sculptures his thoughts in antique compositions. They bring us into the presence of solemn sublimities, as do the ruins of ages, or the caverns of the shores, which we imagine the sea gods built ten thousand years ago. Indeed, Hugo in this materialistic mood is thoroughly ancient, thoroughly Grecian. His plastic or Grecian genius is ever working with its might to interpret itself in forms, and they are antique and collosal. But he has also his spiritualistic mood. His book has a dispensation of subject, it is pregnant with a grand superstition of faith and mistrust. Hugo is as religious and reverent as the old cathedral builders, as cynical and daring as modern infidelity. He is an iconoclast to beat down kingcraft and priestcraft; yet he works with the grim sublimity of an ancient throwing down one temple any cathedral divine. Take the opening of the last novel of the great French patriot. Mark his sculptor style, and that superstition of faith and mistrust which doubts, yet finds a deity in the very nature of the wolf. The man and the wolf are the first to come upon the scene, and they come in loving companionship. With what cynical affection, yet with what supreme trust in Nature's good intents he introduces them together, transposing even their names, man disdainfully honors himself with the name of bear, pathetically degrades the wolf with the name of man. CHAPTER 1.-URSUS. The Ursus and Homo were fast friends. Ursus was a man: Homo was a wolf. Their dispositions were congenial. It was the man who had christened the wolf. Probably he had also chosen the name: having found Ursus good for himself, he had found Homo good for the beast. The association of this man and this wolf was profitable at fairs, at parish festivals, at the corners of streets where passers-by gather together, and wherever the people give way to their need of listening to nonsense and buying orvietan. This wolf, docile, and submissive with a good grace, was acceptable to the crowd. It is a pleasant thing to note the effect of taming. We take supreme delight in seeing all varieties of domestication. It is for this reason that so many persons watch the progress of royal processions. Town. Ursus and Homo went from square to square, from the public places of Canterbury to the public places of Glasgow, from county to county, from town to One market exhausted, they passed on to another. Ursus lived in a crib upon wheels, which Homo, sufliciently civilized, drew by day and guarded by night. When the road was difficult, in going up-hill, when there were too many ruts and too much mud, the man buckled the strap to his neck, and tugged away fraternally, side by side with the wolf, In this fashion they had grown old together. They camped out, according to chance, on a bit of waste ground, at the intersection of crossing roads, at the approach to a hamlet, at the gates of market-towns, in the market-places, in the public malls, on the skirts of a park, on the space before a church. When the tilted cart stopped in some field where a fair was held, when the gossiping old women hurried up open-mouthed, when the cockneys drew round them in a circle, Ursus speechified and Homo approved. Homò, with a wooden bowl in his jaws, politely made a collection. They gained their livelihood. The wolf was lettered, and the man too. The wolf had been trained by the man, or had trained himself alone, to various pretty wolfine ways that augmented their receipts. Above all things," said his friend to him," don't degenerate into man!" Ursus preferred Homo, as a beast of burden, to an ass, To make an ass draw his crib would have been repulsive to him; he set too high a value upon the ass for that. Besides, he had remarked that the ass, a four-footed thinker, little understood of men, has sometimes an unquiet pricking up of the ears, when philosophers say foolish things. In life, between our thoughts and ourselves, an ass is a third party; this is annoying. As a friend, Ursus preferred Homo to a dog, believing that the wolf's approach to friendliness is from a greater distance. This is why Homo sufficed to Ursus. Homo was for Ursus more than a companion; he was an analogue. Ursus tapped him on his lean flanks with the remark: "I have found my second volume." He said furthermore: When I am dead, whoever desires to know me, will only have to study Homo. I shall leave him after me as my exact copy. A supreme cynicism is in the advice of Ursus to the wolf: "Above all things don't degenerate into man!" But how much there is also of supreme trust of the man in nature, when he thus elevates wolf-nature! The second form of his novel is on the English Peerage, dramatically climaxed by the republican's aspiration for a higher nobility and a diviner object for man's idolatry: They've sung of heroes brave and strong, Of poets, too, a numerous throng, Of kings and emperors, mighty lords, And ruled the millions with their swords But I will sing of him who stands In every age, in many lands, We hail all workers, great and small, Be ready at the Master's call, For, though his hands be rough and brown. He's proof against a smile or frown, The honest working man. to erect another. As for his sermons upon man, they are as sombre as those of Salt Lake City, March 28, 1869. WM. WILLIS, 24 THE UTAH MAGAZINE. ELIZA R. SNOW. "ZION'S POETESS." As a fit illustration of the subject of woman and her sphere, we could not find one more acceptable than our Her influbeloved sister, Eliza R. Snow-Zion's Poetess. ence in the Church of the Saints, through the medium of her holy sentiments and elevated thoughts, has been like a pure stream from a heavenly fountain. Her life has been of the divine cast in all its phases, and her sublime devotion to her God, coupled with that saintly meekness which has ever characterized her, is, like her poetic genius, Hebraic in tone and quality. Mark this Hebraic constitution of mind in the poem of her opening life as a Saint: My heart is fixed-I know in whom I trust. A garland deck'd with gems of mortal praise, That I forsook the home of childhood: that I left the lap of case-the halo rife With friendship's richest, soft and mellow tones; O'erflowing with the sweets of social life With high refinement's golden pearls enrich'd. The proclamation sounded in my ear It reached my heart-I listened to the sound- Unalterably, while the spirit of Elijah's God within my bosom reigned, Embraced the Everlasting Covenant; And am determined now to be a Saint And numbered with the tried and faithful ones, Whose race is measur'd with their life; whose prize Is everlasting, and whose happiness Is God's approval; and to whom 'tis more The entire poem from which these lines are copied is very illustrative of the life and character of Sister Eliza. In thus affectionately speaking of her by her Christian name, a suggestive note comes upon the page. Our heroine is the "Sister Eliza" of every Latter-day Saint in the world. This extensive kinship is wonderfully expressive, for it is There is a volume to be read in the mere very uncommon. note of it. Eliza R. Snow has obtained this universal kinship with the Saints by being in her life, her inspirations and her subjects their own poetess. But she is in fact something more than a mere poetess. She is also of the prophetess and priestess type, and hence, as we have said, she is Hebraic in her genius. She is this in her essential nature. The Jewish genius blends that of poetry, prophecy and priestly calling. It is a unique type, differing somewhat from the genius of every other nation. There are only two of the Latter-day Church who pre-eminently possess this triple quality, and they are-Parley P. Pratt, who may be termed the Mormon Isaiah, and Eliza R. Snow. The type is very rare, for although among the great Gentile authors we have poetic natures of the most transcendent excellence, we have seldom met the pure Hebrew cast. We have Shakspeare, Byron, Shelley, Burns; but they are both Gentile and modern in their variety and tone. There is only one of the great English poets who stands boldly as an example of that peculiar poetic genius manifested in the inspired writings of the prophets and psalmists of ancient Israel, and that one is thedivine Milton." This Hebrew genius is pregnant with prophetic subjects, for from it comes its inspirations, and not from the exuberant richness of passionate natures. Its written manifestations abound with elevated spiritual thoughts, its style is that of vigorous simplicity, and its tone of supernatural sublimity. It is therefore eminently spiritualistic in its essence and religious in its very constitution. When found in man it will manifest itself in divine epics, as in "Paradise Lost," or in such writings as those of MAY 15, the apostle, Parley P. Pratt, whose very prose works are poems with the prophetic cast and quality. When found in woman, which is very rarely the case, we have an interblending of the poetess, prophetess and priestess. The difference between this Hebrew genius and that of the Grecian or Roman is strikingly illustrated in Eliza R. Snow, a daughter of Zion through her faith and spiritual instincts, and the gifted Sarah E. Carmichael. The latter is much more luxuriant in imagination and elaborate in her treatment and harmonies of verse; the former more divine in subject and loftier in her inspiration. Miss Carmichael is by far the most passionate writer of the two. Indeed, she is nearly the equal of any "Gentile" poetess living, and her nature and gifts are of the Gentile quality. But Eliza Snow soars to a higher sphere than that of earth, and God, not Nature, is the source of her inspirations. She is well illustrated in her celebrated "INVOCATION to the Eternal Father and Mother"-God, commencing: "O my Father, Thou that dwellest." The most stirring poem of her life is that written upon the martyrdom of the prophet and patriarch Joseph, and Hyrum Smith. This terrible event disturbed for a moment the current of her gentle spirit, which burst forth into passionate verse. Sister Eliza R. Snow in her life has been a constant influence for womanly civilization. No woman in the Church of Latter-day Saints is more universally beloved. Even her own sex envy her not. THE WORLD'S HISTORY Illustrated in its Great Characters. CHAPTER II. THE POPES TO CONSTANTINE. Before referring to some of the world's great characters in detail, we shall give a brief epitome of the first centuries of the Christian era, both descriptive of their spiritual and their temporal phases. The former will give a view of the transition of the Church from its spiritual state to that of temporal dominion, which opened to it in the reign of Constantine the Great; and the latter a view of that other half of the world's dominion-the Roman Empire under its emperors, thus completing the links of history in the reader's mind. 66 the From the low degree of meek followers of the Lamb, successors of the Saints became the very lions of the earth: from fishermen-apostles they sprang into sovereign pontiffs. Religious aspirations were transformed into worldly ambitions, and the successors of sainted martyrs vied with each other to win their crowns in heaven as the exterminators of heretics. Though Jesus opened his dispensation with the suggestive annunciation: 'My kingdom is not of this world!" a clause of his testimony which he immediately after sealed with his blood, yet those who followed as his vicegerents set themselves up above kings and emperors. Arrogance, not meekness, was their cardinal virtue; absolutism, not love, was the sceptre by which they ruled the earth. There is, in these facts, a severe commentary embodied which need not be written here. The temporal dominion of the Popes commenced with the reign of Constantine, was firmly established in that of the imperial Charlemagne, and was consummated by the fierce crusaders of Christendom. The Gospel of the sword prevailed over the Gospel of Peace, and the "dominion was given to the Saints" of the Catholic church. But before this was achieved there was a long warfare between the Popes and Emperors of Rome, in which the early Christians showed themselves |